How to fix an iPhone home button in less than 5 minutes and $10.

If you're reading this post, chances are your iPhone screen looks like this at the moment due to your non responsive home button.

With the assistive touch option on.

Yes, that can get extremely annoying when you're using your iPhone cause you'll always need to move that dot around the corners of your phone. It's like having an annoying pimple on your iPhone that just won't go away. My iPhone 4's home button failed on me a few months ago out of the blue and since then, I've been having that assistive touch switched on. If your phone is still under warranty, you might have a better luck of getting your home button fixed/replaced without paying any money but if your iPhone is no longer under warranty then you might have to spend some money getting it fixed. 


I've been looking up online to see what are the options available to get this problem fixed without emptying my wallet. Most of the searches I've gathered online show step by step instructions of opening up your phone and replacing the button yourself. As much as I would like to think I'm good with gadgets, I do get pretty nervous when it comes to fiddling with hardwares. So if you ask me to conduct a DIY experiment which may destroy my overpriced iPhone, no thank you. I also went over to a phone specialist shop to find out how much it would cost to get the home button replaced and they quoted me NZD $120 for the job. Talk about daylight robbery. After a while of endless searching, I was starting to accept the fact that I might have to live with having the assistive touch option on forever on my iPhone...until I saw this video.

Judging from the comments on this video, this method seems to work effectively on other iPhone users so I thought why not give it a shot? Thus my search for isopropyl alcohol began! It didn't take me too long to look for this solution because I found one at my local pharmacy. Alternatively, this is also called 'rubbing alcohol' which you can also easily get from a hardware store.

I bought mine for NZD $7.

5 minutes later after some rubbing and pressing, my home button works like a charm! I'm not entirely sure how the whole chemistry works here but the online 'pros' say the alcohol seeps in behind the home button and clears the dirt. If you do have an unresponsive home button, give this a try. If it still doesn't work, then maybe you might have a faulty home button that needs replacing.